ALEXANDER III of Macedonia was born in 356 BC... He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time. He did this in order to impress Greek culture upon them. Alexander was not strictly a Greek and he was not cultured, but that was his story, and who am I to deny it?
Alexander’s father was Philip II of Macedonia... He was assassinated in 336 BC by a friend of his wife Olympias.
Olympias, the mother of Alexander, was slightly abnormal... She kept so many sacred snakes in her bedroom that Philip was afraid to go home after his drinking bouts. She told Alexander that his real father was Zeus Ammon, or Amon, a Graeco-Egyptian god in the form of a snake. Alexander made much of this and would sit up all night boasting about it. He was once executed thirteen Macedonians for saying that he was not the son of a serpent.
As a child Alexander was like most other children, if you see what I mean... At twelve he tamed Bucephalus, his favorite horse. In the same year he playfully pushed Nectanebo, a visiting astronomer, into a deep pit and broke his neck... It has never been entirely proved that Alexander shoved the old man. The fact remains that they were standing by the pit and’ all of a sudden Nectanebo wasn’t there any more.
For three years, until he was sixteen, Alexander was educated by Aristotle, who seems to have avoided pits and the edges o£ roofs. Aristotle was famous for knowing everything... In spite of his vast reputation, Aristotle was not a perfect instructor of youth...
With a teacher like that, one’s values might well become warped. On the other hand, even Aristotle couldn’t help some people. As soon as he had finished reading the Nicomachean Ethics, Alexander began killing right and left...
He was now ready for his real career, so he decided to go to Asia where there were more people and more of a variety... he declared war on Persia... to spread Hellenic civilization. The Greeks were embarrassed about this, but they couldn’t stop him. They just had to grin and bear it...
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Posted by david meadows on Apr-09-05 at 6:22 AM
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